Unai Emery shares key reason why Manchester United defeated Aston Villa in Carabao Cup
Aston Villa paid the price, according to Unai Emery, for failing to handle Manchester United for 15 minutes in the second half of Thursday’s Carabao Cup match.
United rallied twice in the second half to upset Aston Villa 4-2 on Thursday night, with Anthony Martial and Marcus Rashford canceling out Ollie Watkins’ opening goal and Diogo Dalot’s own goal before Bruno Fernandes and Scott McTominay completed the victory.
It was an excellent response from Erik ten Hag’s team after their loss at Villa Park over the weekend, and Emery outlined what lost his team the game after the game.
“I am happy with our performance for 75 minutes; we competed very well, and in the first half we were defensively strong,” he told Sky Sports.
“We need to be calmer with the ball, take more possession, and break the press. We were in a good moment for the second half. We had more options in attack and scored twice, but when they scored quickly, we needed to close the spaces between our lines and not open the match.
“They had 15 minutes at the end better than us. We have to achieve in our mind the good moment we did tonight and only the end minutes our mentality was a bit going down. Our challenge is to be consistent.”
Unai Emery shares key reason why Manchester United defeated Aston Villa in Carabao Cup
